Longwood Man Charged With Practicing Medicine

A Longwood man accused of prescribing coffee enemas and horse tranquilizers to his patients was charged Tuesday with practicing medicine without a license.

Agents for the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation ended a monthlong investigation when they arrested Melbourne Ray Baldwin and raided a medical clinic in Orlando that they believe Baldwin had operated since December.

Aided by Orlando police and representatives of the Florida Department of Professional Regulation, MBI agents seized 222 patient files and many vials of medicine from the Mid-Florida Clinic, 1900 N. Orange Ave.

The chief investigator on the case said the investigation may be expanded to determine whether two licensed doctors were involved in the clinic and whether insurance fraud was committed.

''We've barely scratched the surface,'' said the agent, who asked not to be identified because he does undercover police work. ''We've got more than 200 case files to go through before we know exactly what we have.''

The agent said six other people, including a registered nurse, worked at the clinic but are not part of the investigation.

The Department of Professional Regulation, which licenses physicians and nurses in Florida, had no records on Baldwin, who was being held at the Orange County Jail on $100,000 bail. Practicing medicine without a license is a third-degree felony. The maximum penalty is five years in prison.

Baldwin, 50, has faced similar charges elsewhere, according to documents provided by MBI spokesman Tim Hetz. The documents show that he was sentenced to one year of probation and fined $1,000 in January after pleading guilty to charges of practicing medicine without a license in Illinois.

The documents show the charges stemmed from his work in 1983 and 1984 at two suburban Chicago health clinics. In addition, the Missouri Board of Chiropractic Examiners revoked Baldwin's chiropractic license in that state on June 27.

The MBI agent said investigators are not sure when Baldwin began running the clinic, previously known as Preventive Health Care Clinic, but have evidence that he has operated it since December.

Baldwin did not advertise and apparently got most of his patients through referrals and word of mouth, the agent said. Most of the patients were elderly and came to the clinic with illnesses or pains they could not pinpoint. For example, the MBI agent said, people with specific ailments such as broken bones were not treated at the clinic.

''People came to him with all kinds of pains,'' the agent said. ''But no matter what they were, he prescribed the same thing -- vitamin IVs and coffee and barium enemas.''

Baldwin told patients he was not a licensed physician, the agent said.

Agents began investigating the clinic after a 72-year-old woman became ill from a series of the enema treatments and went to another doctor who contacted police.

The investigator said agents interviewed several patients who said they paid the clinic $1,600 to $2,500 for the treatments.

Several of the vials seized during the raid Tuesday had handwritten labels, which covered printed instructions that stated the medicine was for veterinary use only. A printed label on one of the vials said it contained procaine hydrochloride, an anesthetic used on horses and other animals.

''We're having those analyzed as soon as possible,'' the agent said. ''We don't know what they contain.''